Her tone struck him deeply: hurt him terribly. He threw his head up defiantly.
“All right, I’m turned down then,” he said simply. “I didn’t think you’d act like this to a boy you’d known all your life!”
“Don’t be silly, you know as well as I do that it won’t do.”
He did know it and that he had already done enough to make it reasonable for the duchess, if she wanted to, to break their engagement. Slowly preparing to take his leave, he said wistfully: “Can’t I help you in any way? Let me do something with you for your poor. It’s a comfort to have them between us, and you can count on me.”
She said she knew it. “But don’t come any more to the wings; get a habit of not coming.”
On the threshold of her door he asked her to let him know when she would sing in Park Lane, and in touching her hand he repeated that she must count on him. With more tenderness in his blue eyes than he was himself aware, he murmured devotedly:
“Take care of yourself, won’t you, please?”
As Blair passed from the sitting-room into the hall and toward the lift, Mrs. Higgins came out hurriedly from one of the rooms and joined him.
“How did you find her, Mr. Blair?”
“Awfully seedy, Mrs. Higgins; she needs a lot of care.”